Vagabonds of Gor

47 The Slave Camp

I rose up and stretched, and laughed. Ina looked at me, startled.

I was well rested.

"You are unchaining me," she said.

"Stay close to me," I said.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Curiosity," I said, "is not becoming in a Kajira."

I would go to the temporary slave camp. There, in cages, and on chains, and such, there were hundreds of slaves, and women awaiting the collar and iron. There might be a chance, I thought, though I was not sanguine about it, for Ina to slip away there, or hide, or lose herself among others. I might even be able to switch her for another girl, one outbound on a slave wagon, keeping the other hooded for a time, to deceive pursuers.

"Hold!" said a fellow, stepping forth to bar my path. "You are not to leave your camp!"

"Stand aside," I said, "or I will cut you from my path." He laughed.

"You killed him!" cried Ina.

I wiped the blade on his tunic. I was in no mood for trifling.

"What did he want?" she asked. "Why did he not want you to leave?"

I looked about. Some six or seven other fellows seemed to have materialized from among the tents.

"What do they want?" cried Ina.

"Do not block my path," I said to the fellow before me. He looked down at his fellow, fallen, his head oddly to the side, at the blood in the dirt.

I moved menacingly toward the man before me and he, and another, a few feet from him, both before me, moved back, quickly, to the side.

I strode between them, blade ready. Ina scurried behind me.

As soon as I had passed them they fell in about me and behind me, not coming close enough to engage.

I turned about, threatening them, and they drew back. I advanced on one and he swiftly backed away. "Master!" cried Ina. I spun about, and another fellow, who had now approached more closely, backed away.

"Come ahead, any of you," I invited. My voice must have been terrible with menace. Ina whimpered. I think she was afraid to follow me.

"Do not go with him, little vulo," called one of the men.

"Come with us," coaxed another.

"He is mad," said another. "See his face, his eyes!"

"I must go with him," called Ina "He is my master!"

"We will be your master," said one of them.

"Why do they want you?" she asked. "What have you done?"

"Come along," I told her.

I then sheathed my blade, as though in arrogance, and, turning my back, strode away. I counted three and, without warning, spun and drew. Ina leaped from between us.

The fellow spit up blood, backed away, turned, and fell into the dust. I spun about. None of the others had come forward more than a yard or so, and they had then stopped. I looked back at the fellow who had fallen. He was the fellow who had tried to strike from behind before. I had thought it would be he. I had expected him to repeat his pattern, and he had done so. By such a ruse, in such a way, with suitable timing, a fellow can sometimes be drawn in.

"He is dead," said one of the men, turning the fallen fellow over in the dust.

Ina screamed.

She looked at me with horror. I was afraid she would run.

I took her by the hair with my left hand and held her head by my side in a common slave-girl leading position. I then moved carefully toward the temporary slave camp. None of the other fellows offered to bar my way. They, however, hung about me, as closely, I gather, as they dared.

I continued on my way.

Various fellows in the camp turned to watch us.

I increased my pace.

Ina bent over, her small, pretty hands on my wrist, gasping, wincing, hurried beside me.

"Master!" she wept.

"Be silent, female slave," I said.

"It look like she is going for a beating," said a fellow, jocularly, as we passed.

"Perhaps she has not been pleasing," speculated another.

"Perhaps he is going to feed her to sleen," said another.

"Or sell her," suggested another.

Then they noted the fellows who accompanied us, like shadows, and were puzzled, and silent.

"Master!" begged Ina.

"Oh!" she cried, suddenly, in pain, my hand angrily tightening and twisting in her hair.

"You were warned to silence, were you not, slave girl?" I asked.

"Yes, Master!" she wept. "Forgive me, Master!"

I was angry. I did not think, now, that I would be able to switch Ina in the slave camp. The fellows were too close. I could not well get at more than one or two of them, and the others could then withdraw, or, indeed, more likely, take advantage of the opportunity to make off with, or kill, the slave.

I then drew Ina through the portals of the slave camp.

A fellow at the gate laughed, amused at the mode in which the lovely slave was being brought to the camp. But then, he, too, was silent, as he observed the cloud of fellows behind us, now more than four or five, now something closer to a dozen, their numbers having been added to in our progress.

I continued for a time in the camp, making my way among tents, and under open, roofed structures, like those of some markets, and under great awnings, through corridors of cages and kennels, past chains of women, the chains secured between great stakes, among slave wagons and cage wagons, past processing points, an infirmary, commissaries, shops where one might obtain cosmetics, perfume, garments such as camisks, ta-teeras and tunics, ropes, binding fiber, slave bracelets, whips, collars and such, registration desks, storage areas, where one might find slave boxes and holding chains, mat areas, where slaves might be tried out or trained, punishment areas, sales areas, and so on. At last I stopped, somewhere near the center of the camp. There there was a round, sunken area, a sales area for stock lots, one of several. I could get its fence, about which wholesalers would crowd during sales, bidding on the lots displayed below, in the stock pit, at my back.

Our menacing companions, armed and surly, like shadows, were still with us. There were now some fifteen of them. No more seemed to be adding to the number at present. Octantius, as I recalled, had said he would return with a hundred men. Apparently he had left several on duty during the night, or at least posted in the vicinity.

I released Ina, and she, terrified, sobbing, probably in pain, knelt beside me. I looked down, briefly, and she lifted her eyes to mine. They were terrified. The collar, simple as it was, little more than a strap of iron, was pretty on her. She should have been in one long ago.

"It is to you I belong?" she asked, terrified.

"Yes," I said. "Stay close."

"Come to us, little vulo," called one of the fellows.

"You will be safe with us," said another.

"We will rescue you," called another, softly.

"Keep with me," I said.

"It is he whom we want," said one of them, "not you."

"Get out of the way," said another. "Run, leave, you may be hurt."

"Run, little vulo," called another. "Stray, if you wish. It does not matter. You will soon be picked up by another master."

"Run," said another. "There is nothing to fear. You will not be long off a chain."

"Stay close," I said.

"I am afraid!" she wept.

"Stay close," I said.

"I do not know what to do!" she wept.

"Stay close to me," I said.

"I am only a slave!" she wept.

"Stay close," I said.

Suddenly, with a wild sob, she leaped to her feet and ran toward the men, but she had scarcely gone a step or two when she stopped, in terror. The nearest fellow had hurried forward, his sword raised. She screamed and fell to her knees, covering her head. There was a flash of sparks as I blocked his blow. Then, she on her belly between us, weeping, we fought over her. No more than two or three times the blades clashed and then he staggered back, a tiny bit of blood, little more than a line, on his tunic, over the heart.

"Get the girl!" cried a fellow.

She had apparently crawled out from between us, risen to her feet and fled back. I caught one fellow in the gut with the blade as he made to rush past me, after her. Another went past and I cut him down, at the neck, from behind. I looked about. I was alone. One of the gates leading down the steps to the stock pit had been opened and she had apparently fled through it, to cross the pit and ascend the steps on the other side, to flee back further in the camp. Most of the men had followed her through the gate, some had circled about the fence.

"Where is she?" I heard someone call. I heard a woman scream.

"That is not she!" said a man.

"Search the area!" cried a man.

"Search the camp!" cried another.

I circled the sunken sales area. I saw men rushing about among the cages and poles. Some of the girls naked in the tiny cages, in chains, shrank back, as far as they could, behind the bars. One of the women chained kneeling to a slave pole by the wrists clutched it as men rushed past. Another, backed against a slave pole, her hands chained together behind it, over her head, sucked in her belly and pressed, terrified, back against it.

I caught one of the fellows who had followed us against some empty, tiered kennels.

"No!" he cried.

I left him there.

I suddenly came on a fellow. He regarded me wildly. No! He was not one of those who had followed us! I had nearly cut him down.

I looked about.

The camp was large, but I did not think she would find it too easy to hide in it. Most cages and boxes would be locked, of course. Too, she was not on a chain. It would presumably be only a matter of time until she, a lovely barefoot slave loose in the camp, would attract attention. Then she would presumably be summoned to a chain or would be braceleted and held. Even if she found an excellent temporary hiding place, presumably it would not serve to conceal her indefinitely. If necessary, every square hort of the camp could be examined. Also, I did not think she could get out of the camp. It was surrounded with slave wire. She could be cut to pieces on it. Too, there were guards, and sleen.

I decided to continue looking for her.

A girl cried out, almost under my feet, twisting about in her chains. I had nearly stepped on her. She was fastened between two stakes.

I passed between tiers of cages, several of which had women in them, huddled back, chained, behind the bars.

I looked behind some of these tiers. I saw nothing, only refuse, and an urt hurrying away.

"Why is your blade drawn, fellow?" asked a man, a slaver's man.

I did not respond to him, but passed him.

I wondered if Ina had been taken by now. If so, I did not think I could help her. She had not had much of a start.

In one aisle in the camp I encountered two female slaves, naked, chained to yokes, their ankles shackled as well. From each termination of both yokes there was suspended a large wooden bucket of wastes. They were doubtless on their way to some part of the camp, probably a fosse or pit, set aside for the deposit of such materials. I think they were only too happy to kneel in my presence, this permitting them to rest the buckets on the dirt floor of the aisle, between cages. Both were quite pretty. I wondered if their present duty had been assigned to them as a discipline or punishment.

"Have you see a fair-haired slave in a brown tunic about, loose?" I asked.

"No, Master," they said, bent deeply over, looking up at me, fearfully, from the yokes.

I then left them behind, on their knees. They were, I suspected, new slaves. Perhaps in the recent past their demeanor had suggested to someone that they might have been tempted to have less than a total commitment to perfect pleasingness and instant obedience. Now, however, they had learned to kneel before men and look up at them with fear.

I was then among some wagons. I looked into the backs of several slave wagons, most of which were empty. In some of them there were slaves, who, startled, turned about, with a clink of chains, their ankles fastened about the central bar, near the floor of the wagon bed, parallel with its long axis. In one there was a hooded, back-braceleted woman sitting on the floor of the wagon bed, her back against one side. Her knees were pulled up, and must remain so, at her keeper's pleasure. She could not extend her legs because of a belly rope, a length of which passed behind her and then forward, being tied about her ankles. She was also chained by the neck to one side of the wagon and a shackle was about her left ankle, below the ropes, attaching her to the central bar. Beyond this there were several coarse ropes wound tightly about her body. Her nudity was almost concealed by them. Perhaps she was a free woman of Brundisium who had been arrogant and was now to be smuggled out of the area, to begin her life anew and on a more fitting basis, in a collar, at the feet of a master. There was no custodial need, of course, for the weight and plentitude of the restraints on her. She was merely being accustomed, I assumed, to the feel of bonds on her body. She would doubtless soon learn to beg to be pleasing, that their number might be lessened. She turned her hooded visage toward me, twisting in the restraints. She made tiny noises. Within the hood she was gagged. I then pulled down the canvas. She had a very pretty figure but it was not that of Ina. There was no blanket on the floor of the wagon.

I looked about.

Here and there, near the wagons, there were slave sacks, some occupied, usually with tags on them. These, however, were either locked shut, or tied or buckled shut. That could not be done from the inside.

"What are you doing here?" asked a fellow.

"Have you seen a blond slave," I asked, "loose, in a slit-sided brown tunic, in a strap collar?"

"No," he said.

I continued my search.

I passed a processing point but the chain, overhead, to which the shorter, individual neck chains would be attached, was not now moving. There were two or three long, low, narrow tarsk cages nearby, with chain-link sides, in which some women were waiting for processing. One or two, kneeling, were looking out, their fingers hooked in the linkage. Each cage, I noted, was locked.

I stepped aside to let a cage wagon roll by, going to the wagon yard. There were seven women in it, apparently free women, stripped.

"The camp does not open officially for another Ahn," said a fellow.

"What is going on?" asked another fellow, a slaver's man.

"Nothing," I said.

"Have you seen a blond slave in a brown tunic?" asked one of them, of me.

"Why do you ask?" I asked.

"There are several fellows about," he said, "looking for her."

"If I should see her," said one of the fellows, he who had apprised me that the camp was not yet officially open, "I will get her in slave hobbles in no time."

"There may be a reward," said another fellow.

"Yes," agreed another.

"Everyone will be looking for her," said the first fellow.

"She cannot escape the camp," said another.

"She will be apprehended momentarily," said another.

"Yes," said another.

In a moment or two, I stopped a few yards from a registration desk. There one of Ina's pursuers, I recognized him from earlier, was making inquiries of one of the five camp prefects, fellows under the camp praetor. The perfects are identified by five slash marks, alternately blue and yellow, the slavers' colors, on their left sleeve, the praetor himself by nine such stripes, and lesser officials by three. Turning about, apparently alerted by the prefect's notice, the fellow with one hand suddenly turned the prefect's desk to its side so that it stood wall-like between us, and hurried behind it.

"Begone!" he cried. "It is no longer a concern of yours! Begone!"

I advanced on him and he turned and fled.

The prefect, not much pleased, looked after him. Then he turned to face me. "No," he said, "I know nothing about a runaway blond slave."

I nodded. Runaway slaves, incidentally, are extremely rare on Gor. That is the sort of absurdity which even the most stupid girl is likely to try no more than once. It is not merely that Gorean masters tend not to be tolerant of such behavior in their female slaves, but that there is really nowhere to run. The society is tightly knit, the girl is marked, and so on. The girl is extremely likely to be returned promptly in chains to her rightful master, to be subjected in terror to the consequences of his displeasure, or, if not, to be kept or sold for the pleasure or profit of others, usually to serve them then in a custody far more severe, fearful and arduous than that which was her former lot. The slave girl on Gor soon learns, if she does not already know, the categoricality of her condition, that it is for all practical purposes, and for all realistic possibilities, inescapable, inalterable and absolute.

"Would you like me to have a search organized?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"Perhaps you would like to have a general announcement made?" he said.

"No," I said.

"What would you have done with that fellow, if you had caught him?" he asked.

"Kill him," I said.

I then continued my search.

I was not optimistic about its successful conclusion. By now it seemed likely that someone, somewhere in this large camp, might well have her in custody. She could be lying somewhere now, trussed like a vulo in a market. Indeed, if any of her original pursuers had apprehended her, she might be dead. The fellow from whom I had saved her, when she had fled from my side toward the pursuers, had been clearly ready to slay her. Indeed, he had attempted to do so. I had barely managed to block his blow. She had then fled back and I, and, I gathered, the others, had lost her, at least for the time.

I strode into one of the holding areas.

Girls back-braceleted to stakes pulled back their legs as I moved past. Some front-braceleted to stakes quickly pressed against them, or crawled to the other side. Others, their wrists chained about bars, lay close to them. Others, back from the main aisles, chained in numbered spaces on racks, observed me.

"May I help you?" asked a fellow.

"I am looking for a female," I said, "a blond girl, in a brown tunic, with a strap collar, who fled from me."

"Unbidden?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I would not care to be her," he said.

"Could she have sneaked into a slave box here?" I asked.

"They are locked," he said, "and the keys are either out, or on my belt."

I then left the holding area. Ina, to be sure, might have discarded her brown tunic. She had quite possibly done so. She could not, of course, discard the collar.

Where, I asked myself, might such a wench hide?

She might, I thought, have attempted to hide in the infirmary.

On the way to the infirmary I passed a mat area where a girl on her stomach, to the snapping of a whip, was being taught to lift her body placatingly. Later, when the camp was officially open and crowded the mat areas are often used for trying out slaves.

Before reaching the infirmary I also passed an area where there was a coffle of girls. The first girls on the chain were in tears and others, toward the end, were looking toward the beginning of the chain, apprehensively. One girl, toward the center of the chain was standing very still, tears streaming down her cheeks. A slaver's man with a bowl of lather and a razor was shaving her, completely. Her head had already been shaved. These girls were doubtless to be part of the cargo of a slave ship, probably bound for Cos or Tyros. The shaving is for hygienic reasons, to protect them in the crowding and the filth, on the shelves, from parasites. Even so they are usually submerged in a slave dip shortly after landing.

I saw one of Ina's pursuers but he, seeing me, hurried in another direction.

Continuing toward the infirmary I passed a small punishment area. There were several such in the camp. Such areas interestingly, are seldom used. That they exist seems more than sufficient for most girls. In this one there was a woman chained by the neck to a post. Other than this she was sitting with her back to the post in a common slave tie, her arms down between her thighs, her left wrist passing under her left calf and tied on the outside of her left ankle, the right wrist passing under the right calf and tied on the outside of the right ankle. I have seen this tie used even in the Barrens, by the red savages on their white female slaves. The woman looked at me in terror. She feared, I suppose, that I was he who had come to mete out her punishment. She may have been waiting for Ahn, in ignorance not only of he who was to administer her punishment but also, probably, even of what the punishment was to be. In the tie I have mentioned, incidentally, the woman is not only rendered totally helpless but her sense of vulnerability is considerably increased. In it she cannot close her legs. This latter aspect, of course, is a feature of several popular slave ties.

"May I help you?" asked a fellow.

He had a small booth, specializing in slave harnesses. I thought Ina would look well in one.

"Have you seen a blond slave, loose?" I asked.

"No," he said.

I made to turn away.

"Have you lost one?" he asked.

"Perhaps," I said.

"If you had had her in one of my harnesses," he said, "you would still have her in your keeping."

"Doubtless," I said.

"I have a lovely chain model here," he said.

I was then at the infirmary. I had not known if it would be practical place to hide or not. I found that it was not. There the girls lay on wooden pallets, on the ground, chained to them by the wrists, ankles and neck. They were helpless and in plain view. There was no way that Ina could have managed to hide there.

I then heard, from several yards away, some shouts and screams. I swiftly sped toward the place.

In a moment or two I saw several of the fellows who had been after Ina angrily thrusting tiered slave cages about, some of them even climbing among them, several feet above the ground. I wondered if they might have caught sight of her among them. It was not the sort of place I would have expected Ina to hide, the crevices between the backs of such cages being rather open, and often serving as urt courses, and such, but who knew?

"Have you found her yet?" I asked one of Ina's pursuers.

"No," he said, turning about, and taking my sword in the gut.

"The killer!" cried one of the fellows up on the tiers. "Look out! The killer!"

He began to thrust slave cages toward me, from the top tier, their occupants screaming, four or five tumbling down toward me, then crashing to the dirt aisle.

I could not get to any of the others.

If Ina were here somewhere she was safe for the moment. I climbed up, climbing on the cages, to get to the top tier. From there I could look between the rows. From this vantage, too, of course, I could look about, over the vast floor of this open structure, beneath its wooden roof, supported on numerous tall, squared pillars. I saw more rows of cages, a commissary, two kitchens, the infirmary, a punishment area, two mat areas, the harness booth, some holding areas, chains of women. I also saw various shops, rather like stalls in a bazaar. Looking down between the cages I saw only an urt below. In the aisle at the foot of the cages I saw several dislodged cages, tipped about one way and the other, some of which had been pulled loose in their search, and some of which, tumbling down, had been directed at me, none of which, happily, had struck me. I also saw the fellow I had run through, sprawled in what was now, about him, red mud.

I could see fellows readying the camp for its opening. It was near the tenth Ahn, the Gorean noon.

I looked about again, over the floor. I doubted that Ina could long remain hidden once the camp had opened. It would then be swarming with visitors and patrons, many of them wholesalers from distant towns. I had seen one fellow yesterday in the robes of Turia.

I heard a girl moaning in one of the cages below. She was doubtless shaken from her rude trip from the upper tiers. She was doubtless terribly frightened, and well bruised. Indeed, perhaps a limb was broken.

Where, I asked myself, would Ina, who was extremely feminine, a slave in her deepest heart and belly, be likely to hide? I could hear some fellows on the roof above. If I were thinking to hide, as a man, I might have attempted to reach the roof. I did not think, however, that Ina would have been likely to have been able to reach the roof, or, if she could, that she would be likely to think of such a place, one so vast and open. At any rate there were apparently fellows up there now. It would have occurred to them, as it had to me, that it was an excellent possibility. But, too, I supposed, it might not have occurred to them, as it had to me, that Ina, a lovely female, would not be likely to think in terms of such a place. She would probably think in terms of a more feminine hiding place, a smaller, more-closed-in, more-sheltered, safer-seeming place, a closet, a cabinet, a trunk, a box, a cage, a wagon, a sack, such places, or else to think in terms of putting herself where it might seem to her that she belonged in a camp such as this, with other slaves like herself, inserting herself among them as what she would then be, merely one slave among others, perhaps even to be put on their chain and taken away with them. Indeed, when I had started out for the camp this morning I had hoped to be able to conceal her in just such a fashion, and, hopefully, have her elude her pursuers, perhaps as a hooded girl in a slave wagon or a shaved-headed beauty bound for a shelf on a slave ship.

I glanced again about the floor, and at the booths in the distance, under the roof, various sorts of booths, for the sales of whips, leashes, collars, chains, jewelry, cosmetics, perfumes, slave garb and such. I saw two or three of the fellows who had been pursuing Ina about, too, on the floor, turning things over, pushing them to one side, and such. I looked from the top tier toward the booths again, and, for some reason, the booth where slave garb was sold. There, on pegs, and ropes, were hanging numerous slave garments, camisks, tunics, silks, and such. I then descended from the tiers. I glanced into some of the overturned cages, lying on their sides. In each, now lying on the side of the cage, was a chained girl. These, frightened, wide-eyed, huddled back in the cages, away from the barred gates. The ankles of each were joined by about a foot of chain, and their wrists by about six inches of chain. The ankle chaining, by its center, and the wrist chaining, by its center, were joined with a short length of chain, about two feet in length. One of the girls was moaning and holding her left arm tightly against her body. It must have been severely bruised, if not broken. If it were broken it could be set, and she could then be returned to the cage. I did not know if the injury would be likely to delay her sale in the camp or not. I did not think it would if she were an item in a lot due to be wholesaled, for then she would not be likely to be retailed for weeks, but it might if she was intended for an immediate retail sale. Doubtless in such a case haggling might occur, as to whether or not she should be discounted, or marked down. It seemed to me that I was trying to think of something, something which had nearly occurred to me on the height of the tiers. I moved away from the moaning girl. I was restless. What I wanted to think of seemed on the point of revealing itself. I walked a bit back, down the aisle, before the tiered cages, and among some which had been tumbled down. I looked into another cage. This one, however, farther down the line, was on its back, so that its gate was up, like a lid. As I glanced in, a girl, lying on the back of the cage, now its bottom, as it was turned, averted her eyes and drew her limbs closely together. I moved a bit further on. I suddenly sensed the nearness of the thought again. Suddenly, near me, another female, perhaps seeing my feet and legs before the gate of her tipped cage, began to scream and thrash in her cage. The thought fled. I looked angrily into the cage. The girl continued to scream and kick in the chains. I lost my anger almost instantly seeing how beautiful she was in her chains. I picked up an iron rod fallen to the dust, which had become unhooked from the side of one of the cages. It is used usually for poking through the bars. The girl was terrified seeing it in my hand. Even though she was, I think, a free female, she already well knew its powers. I used the rod, however, only for striking twice on the bars. "Be silent," I warned her. "Yes, Master!" she said. "Are you a slave?" I asked. "No, Master," she said. "But you have already learned to call men "Master"," I said. "Yes, Master!" she said. "Good," I said. I then discarded the rod in the dust of the aisle. I heard her whimper in relief inside the tiny cage. At that moment I suddenly hurried toward the booths which I had seen from the upper tier.